'War-torn'... 'out of control': What a year for Chicago bashing

Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune

Donald Trump supporters line up early in the afternoon on March 11, 2016, at the UIC Pavilion where Donald Trump was scheduled to speak. Protesters shut the rally down before Trump could take the stage.

Donald Trump supporters line up early in the afternoon on March 11, 2016, at the UIC Pavilion where Donald Trump was scheduled to speak. Protesters shut the rally down before Trump could take the stage.

Or at least that's what you'd think if you listened to some commentators in recent years.

There was Rachel Shteir's memorable smackdown of Chicago in the New York Times Book Review in 2013, in which she noted the city's crime, bad weather, foreclosures, high parking rates and racial segregation. About the best she could say was: "Chicago is not Detroit, not yet."

Another critic that year was Jon Stewart, who described Chicago deep-dish pizza as "a cornbread biscuit which you've melted cheese on and then — in defiance of God and man and all things holy — you poured uncooked marinara sauce atop the cheese."

In a more serious vein in 2015, Stewart ripped Chicago for re-electing Mayor Rahm Emanuel, noting that "things are looking up, and by things, I mean the amount of money they don't have, and crime."

But those critiques were mild compared to this year's aggravated assault on Chicago's image, led by the man who will soon be president of 325 million Americans, including the 2.7 million in Chicago.

Chicago is like a "war-torn country," with violence "out of control," said President-elect Donald Trump.

"It's terrible what's going on in Chicago," he said, describing the city as "worse than some of the places we're hearing about like Afghanistan" as far as public safety goes.

After counterprotests led Trump to cancel a rally at the UIC Pavilion in March, Trump explained that "thugs … shut down our First Amendment rights in Chicago."

As is Trump's way, he threw in a compliment amid the criticism, saying, "I love Chicago. I have big investments in Chicago, and I think it's a great city."

But the general message was clear: Chicago is dangerous because of liberal permissiveness. And that became a conservative theme of 2016.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for "a federal strategy" to quell Chicago's violence. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said the National Guard should be sent in to "stabilize the situation."

Fox News' Sean Hannity declared: "It is a city that seems really out of control, almost like New York before Rudy Giuliani took over."

Giuliani, for his part, focused on the potential for widespread vote fraud in Chicago: "You want me to tell you the election in Philadelphia and Chicago is going to be fair? I would have to be a moron to say that." But when the vote was held a few weeks later, it was largely trouble-free in Chicago.

Even when the conversation veered away from politics, Chicago got whacked.

CBS-owned WBBM-Ch. 2 noted in April that when you typed "Chicago flag" into Google, you got a picture of the St. Louis flag. The insult to Chicago was apparently unintentional: Google linked to a Chicago magazine story about the city's flag that mentioned flag experts' admiration for the St. Louis version.

Billionaire Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, said in September: "If you are a very talented person, you have a choice: You either go to New York or you go to Silicon Valley." He was speaking at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Even people who tried to praise Chicago insulted it.

TV producer Dick Wolf, visiting in August to start filming his fourth NBC series here, "Chicago Justice," declared, "I said to the mayor I tell people that Chicago, compared to New York — where I grew up and I still love — this is a cleaner, politer New York with slightly heavier people."

The bashing wasn't limited to out-of-staters.

Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has a home in Winnetka, denounced the "Chicago political machine" and said many of the city's public schools "are basically just crumbling prisons."

But Rauner's most famous Chicago-bashing quote this year came in a 5-year-old email released in June only because the Tribune won a public records lawsuit against the city. Rauner wrote that half of Chicago Public Schools teachers "are virtually illiterate" and half of the city's principals are "incompetent." He apologized after the Tribune revealed the email.

Reality TV star Kristin Cavallari, who moved to the Chicago area four years ago to support her husband, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, described Chicago as a backwater: "I'd be lying if I didn't say that, living in Chicago I feel like my career suffers a little bit just because I am completely out of the limelight."

Stewart was off the air in 2016 after leaving "The Daily Show" last year, but another commentator took the role of troll in ridiculing Chicago pizza. The headline of Curry Shoff's Gawker article in August said it all: "Papa John's Pizza Is the Best Pizza in Chicago."

And even after the election, conservatives kept pounding on the People's Republic of Chicago.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh noted that the presidential vote showed Democratic support was limited to the coasts and "the little outpost in Chicago." Fox News' Greg Gutfeld called Emanuel a "moron" and ridiculed Chicago's status as a "sanctuary city" for immigrants at a time when the city's murder toll is so high.

"What else is a sanctuary?" Gutfeld asked. "Aleppo? Mosul? The magma basin of an active volcano?

"Chicago's only slightly safer than a minefield," he added. "… It's entirely possible that one day there will be sanctuary cities in Mexico, for people fleeing Chicago."

This coming year could be just as tough on Chicago.

After all, Trump will have the bully pulpit. He and Vice President-elect Mike Pence — whose uncle was a Chicago cop — insist that the city needs stop-and-frisk, a police tactic ruled unconstitutional when used in New York City.

And Trump's choice for Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price, once said the Obama administration's dealings with BP over its Gulf of Mexico oil spill were an example of "Chicago-style shakedown politics."